Memory Effect And Neural Mechanism Of Reflected Self-Appraisals

Self is cognitive structure and social structure as well. Symbolic interaction theory, which concerns the social structure of the self and emphasize the important role social environment takes in the process of formation and development of individual self, puts forward the looking-glass self for the sake of highlighting the importance others'opinions has on the formation of self concept during interpersonal interaction. Reflected self-appraisals, as the core elements of looking-glass self, is point to perception of oneself about how others see himself. In previous studies, the researchers are more concerned about the function, accuracy and formation mechanism of the reflected self-appraisals.Some researchers also concern about cognitive structure of the self, referring people's view of their own as a complex and highly organized structure of knowledge and putting forward self-scheme used to refer to those characteristics which are said to have specific meaning and high certainty. This research assumes that reflected self-appraisals has both social features and hierarchical structure so it can studied from the cognitive perspective. This research, using self-referential processing task, first discusses memory effect and neural mechanism of reflected self-appraisals.Study one investigated memory effects of reflected self-appraisals of individuals from three stages of adolescence, early youth and early adulthood. By using junior high school students from12 to14years old, experiment one investigated memory effect of reflected self-appraisals when facing mother, specific friend and unfamiliar students and found that the reflected self-appraisals scores of first two stimuli is significantly higher than the last one. The subjects of the experiment two are high school students about15-17years old and the results showed that the memory scores of the early youth is significantly decrease by the sequence of specific friend, mother, and unfamiliar students. Experiment three used university students from19to26years old, and the results showed that memory scores of reflected self-appraisals of early adulthood to good friends is significantly better than to the mother and specific unfamiliar students.During the development of the self, as the process of individual socialization, one will integrate specific others or group of one type to form generalized others. Study one found memory advantage effects to different specific others, then how about the different generalized others? Study two investigated memory effects of reflected self-appraisals of individuals from three stages of adolescence, early youth and early adulthood. It used junior high school students of12to14years old to discuss memory effects of generalized reflected self-appraisals when facing mother, specific friend and unfamiliar students and found that the reflected self-appraisals scores of first two stimuli is significantly higher than the last one. The subjects of the experiment five are high school students about15-17years old and the results showed that the memory scores of the early youth is significantly decrease by the sequence of specific friend, mother, and unfamiliar students. Experiment six used university students from18to22years old, and the results showed that memory scores of reflected self-appraisals of early adulthood to good friends is significantly better than to the mother and specific unfamiliar students.Study three adopted event related potential (ERP) technology to discuss cognitive neural mechanism of reflected self-appraisals of early adulthood. The experiment seven discussed neural mechanism of reflected self-appraisals when facing specific object of mother, friend and unfamiliar students and found that processing of mother triggered greater N2amplitude and specific good friends greater P3amplitude. The experiment eight discussed neural mechanism of reflected self-appraisals when facing generalized object of mother, friend and unfamiliar students and found that processing of unfamiliar students triggered greater N2amplitude, and processing of family greater P3amplitude. Overall speaking, the findings of this study mainly conclude:1Whether it is specific others or generalized others, there is a memory advantage of reflected self-appraisals to different people.2The memory effect of individuals in different development phases is different and as the growth of the age, it shows separation effect.3The process of reflected self-appraisals to different people may exits two stages:the first is the processing stage of early attention deviation and then is attention distribution in the late stage of attention.This study started from the core elements of looking glass self to reflected self-appraisals. Based on behavior data and ERP data, it suggests that individuals may have looking-glass self-scheme, and through the preliminary discussion, it has the following properties:First, the structure of looking-glass self-scheme has different levels, different memory effect of reflected self-appraisals to different others.Second, looking-glass self-scheme follows the materiality principle, the greater influence on individual self concept, the more important to individual himself and more closely the others have in his looking-glass self-scheme.Third, looking-glass self-scheme is dynamic and open, and different stages of development has different importance sequence, so it is with the position of looking-glass self-scheme.Reflected self-appraisals is a complex subject involving cognition, personality, cultural and social psychological phenomenon. This study only preliminarily reflected the cognitive structure of reflected self-appraisals, and there are many problems waiting for further discussion with multiple perspectives and methods.